


Mochi: Local Cryptid, Apprenticed Knitter, Best-Ninja-In-The-World To Be, Uchiha Wrangler Extraordinaire (and definitely NOT Uzumaki Naruto)

by Jj1234



Series: Chakra is not Ectoplasm (but it'll work) [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Gender Roles, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Naruto Canon Era, gender fluid
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:28:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23273230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jj1234/pseuds/Jj1234
Summary: Mochi doesn't wanna be Hokage, she doesn't really even need to be famous. She just wants to be strong enough to keep all her precious people safe and happy for the rest of time. She'd also like it if the adults could understand that even though she is sometimes female and sometimes male, she does not understand most of the kunoichi classes. At all.Other than that, if her Rama Tou-san could please let her make sure her kiddies and friends didn't get themselves killed in peace, and everyone would stop wondering where the Uzumaki kid and the Kyuubi went off to, she'd be golden!(series is to put works together, this is not a sequel)
Relationships: Kyuubi | Nine-tails | Kurama & Uzumaki Naruto
Series: Chakra is not Ectoplasm (but it'll work) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1620352
Kudos: 22





	Mochi: Local Cryptid, Apprenticed Knitter, Best-Ninja-In-The-World To Be, Uchiha Wrangler Extraordinaire (and definitely NOT Uzumaki Naruto)

**Author's Note:**

> [...] is speaking in Naruto's mind  
> Bold is Kurama speaking  
> {...} is thought communication (which is different than speaking in your mind, you'll see)
> 
> This is a bit of a mess, because I don't feel much like trying to edit it again because I am both very bored and stressed from being inside my house with my family for the past week. Please be kind with comments and please tell me if something doesn't make sense! Hope you like it :)
> 
> warnings for this chapter: brief mentions of, ya'know, death and stuff. brief mention of miscarriage and pregnancy troubles, Jinchuuriki situation from bijuu POV- forced imprisonment and labor and isolation-, Naruto's childhood (mostly neglect)

The Shinigami didn’t get out much. It was a being of death and had a lot to do, presiding over, sorting, and guiding souls to where they should be. One of its deepest regrets was dealing with the long lived Uzumaki and giving them knowledge of the Dead Demon Consuming Seal in an effort to maybe collect some of them faster. What it did not anticipate was the sheer chaos and paperwork they could generate with it. It thought it would be an easy way to consume two or more souls at once, maybe even drain some chakra to get stuff done faster. It had not thought it through at all. First, they barely ever used it and when they did, it usually took more time to collect those two or so odd souls than it was worth. Second, the paperwork and backlog were ridiculous! Just more wasted time. Third, and this one was important, they would not SHUT UP! Excuse it if it wanted to try something new and ended up making it so the souls could not go to the afterlives and had to stay in its stomach!

So when the Shinigami felt itself being summoned once more, it was not overly pleased. The humans hadn’t summoned it in such a long time, it had hoped that they had forgotten how. With the most reluctance it could show while still seeming like an immortal, all powerful, cool being of death (that is to say, none), it answered the jutsu. And promptly noticed that though a weak and near dying Uzumaki was present, they were not the one to summon it. No, that would be the grown blonde one, because the Uzumaki was busy restraining the freaking  **Kyuubi.** Existence damned humans. When did they ever think?! It was not looking forward to whatever was coming next.

The Shinigami almost wished humans could perceive nature chakra and its delicate balance as it and the chakric beings could. Then maybe they would understand  _ why, _ exactly, sealing great beings of sentient, natural chakra and cutting them off from the flow of the world, or more accurately, cutting the world off from them, was such a monumentally bad idea. Actually, it wondered how those few humans who learned to be Sages or something from their summons could miss it.

Maybe it could apply for a vacation to study it… Ah, the blonde was ready to attack whatever it wanted to now. Well, time to get on with it. The Shinigami really didn’t know what the human was going to seal, the Uzumaki was already dying and the tiny blonde was surely not worth the effort, so- Oh hell no. This stupid, arrogant, short sighted, blundering human was trying to seal the freaking Kyuubi. Like, it knew humans genuinely didn’t understand the consequences of that habit, but how dumb could they be to try and seal the Kyuubi- a being of pure, natural chakra that was immortal and could and should always reform- into a Shinigami?! That was monumentally- OH MY REALITY. Was the human serious? Only half of the Kyuubi, and not even a sensible balanced half, only the Yin chakra, preventing the Kyuubi from ever really reforming properly. And what did a Shinigami need with half a chakra being for, anyway? I mean, bragging rights for reaping an immortal that would otherwise never really be reaped, yes. But the paperwork. Not to mention the amount of imbalance it would create in the world. No, this wouldn’t do, but what- The Sage people.

They developed a way to balance and store pure natural chakra in their bodies. Granted, they had to stay perfectly still and could only do it for limited amounts of time, but they developed the techniques from summons and summons were chakric based beings with physical bodies and- It could work with this. And the (idiotic) blonde only wanted to seal half of the Kyuubi into itself and subsequently into the Shinigami, and the other half into- into the tiny Uzumaki. Because of course, an hour old newborn could hold half of the most powerful bijuu in existence! It would- wait, no, this minuscule Uzumaki was somehow born with the chakra reserves to survive this. Aww, that kid would be an absolute monster when it grew up. Adorable. And very fortunate. Let's hope this works and the child doesn't just turn to stone or explode or somethihng.

It was the work of a thought and a flick to pull the Kyuubi’s yin through the grown blonde and let it think it had sealed it in it while the Shinigami scattered the yin chakra around Konoha and sealed the small pieces into its borders- it had to seal it somehow, or the summoning wouldn’t end. Then, things got a bit trickier. The Shinigami was still able to stick around as the blonde prepared the tiny blonde for its own sealing. As the blonde belonged to the Shinigami now, it was simple enough to see its plan for the child’s seal. The next step, modifying it, was harder. Thankfully, the (still absolutely moronic) blonde had already decided to use an unlapped Eight Trigram Seal to allow the child and Kyuubi’s chakras to mix a bit. Hmm, mark that, adjust this, push that to the side, erase that dot, balance that swirl… This is looking pretty- WTF.

Blondy, you dumbbutt, moronic, nincompooped dollop head! You do not turn your back to the  **F***ING KYUUBI!** And now you and the larger Uzumaki are dying, great job. Ugh, whatever, stupid dying humans and their stupid speeches. You will do the seal like this, that key thing will be useless, and you won’t even realize the difference. 

Oh wow. WOW. That actually worked! It’s already functioning perfectly, oh this is its best work yet. Ever. Aww, look at the seal taking root, the changes the (adorable!) Uzumaki is going through. Sheer genius on the Shinigami’s part. Not only would the Kyuubi be sealed in the child, but the child’s chakra coils had been adjusted to better take in nature chakra and channel it to the Kyuubi for it to reform its yin half from that and the scattered bits in Konoha. Sure, it would probably have some sort of effects on the kid that the Shinigami really didn’t want to think through now and the Kyuubi would probably be stuck with this kid for, like, a really long time, but! He did add a clause to the seal that so long as the kid and Kyuubi were still sealed together, then no one else could further seal or totally control the Kyuubi and that once he was fully formed, he would be able to let parts of his chakra out in such a way that he could form a vessel, albeit probably a smaller one than he was used to.

Anyway, case and point was that the Kyuubi owed it all the favors.

*****

Naruto’s life was, well, it was bad. Not the worst! He knew that, he had food (just enough for a normal kid, but not enough for him), a room all to himself (he wasn’t allowed to share, all the other kids were told to stay away from him, even when the other rooms all had at least four kids each), he was never hurt (because no one ever wanted to touch him or acknowledge him or  _ just see him, please  _ ), he was always safe (because he was never let further than the front gate and even if he  _ did  _ make it past the gate, the masked people that always felt quiet and muffled would bring him back), and, best of all, he had a secret tou-san! None of the other kids in the orphanage had secret tou-sans that taught them chakra or sneaking or anything like it, he knew because tou-san taught him how to properly feel chakra and no one else had a second chakra in them.

But even Kurama tou-san hadn’t always been there. Naruto thinks he was, technically, he’d always been able to feel him and his chakra, and sometimes he would get little warnings or feelings of warmth when his tummy hurt from bad or too little food, but he hadn’t always been able to talk to him. Or known he was there.

So while Naruto  _ knew  _ his life wasn’t the worst, maybe technically wasn’t even that  _ bad _ , it wasn’t all that good either. Or fun. Tou-san helped a lot, especially because he gave him so many  _ answers _ , but he was still only in his head. Chakra coils. Body, soul, or whatever part of a human you seal chakra beings into. He wasn’t next to him, he couldn’t protect him much (and he may care a little, and Naruto may be becoming better friends with Kurama, but tou-san or not, Kurama wasn’t always nice). But Kurama tou-san gave him answers, explanations, even lessons, and that was enough.

He told him why he could feel so much, like the other kids and how the  _ spicy-itchy-hot-heavy  _ feelings on their impressions meant anger or the shades of  _ sticky-choking-cold  _ that meant fear. That the impressions of the kids and matron and masked people were their  _ chakra  _ and that he was a  _ sensor  _ because he could use nature chakra. That using nature chakra like he did was not normal (not human). That he wasn’t normal because his human parents trapped his Rama tou-san into him rather than letting him run, and they died for it. That he was only ever born because Kurama was in his human Kaa-chan when she was pregnant and he made sure Naruto was born healthy and strong. That’s why Kurama lets him call him “tou-san”, ‘cause he helped him be born just like his Kaa-chan did.

And there were things that Rama tou-san didn’t tell him, but that Naruto figured out because of the lessons he taught him. Like that the nature chakra he used was making tou-san stronger - bigger - every year. That Kurama’s  _ spicy-blaze-earthstrong  _ feelings when he talked about his human parents meant that though he was not lying about them or the reasons for their deaths, he had hated them and held no remorse. (That he could hate Naruto, too, and the only reason Kurama gave him a chance was because Naruto was a bigger help than hinder, and Kurama wanted to make him more helpful) 

Needless to say, not all that much happened in the first four years of Naruto’s life. Kurama only started speaking to him when he was almost three, and it made life a bit more bearable, but still lonely and, frankly, boring. He spent a lot of time using his senses to try to explore the village - the  _ small-bright-soft  _ of children who didn’t have distinct, personal energy - chakra - impressions, the smells of the morning, the spring, the vendors nearby, the sounds of the birds, the salespeople, the Matron, the other children laughing, the boring, icky taste of the same food over and over (the smells and tastes that meant food would make his stomach hurt and the warmth - Kurama - heavier), the feel of the walls of his room, the yard dirt on his feet (hair, face, arms when the other kids push him away from their games). Sometimes, when the hidden masked people were  _ spring-sprout-growth  _ or  _ lightning-dog-drain _ , Naruto would sneak up to the roof and watch the sun burn the houses red and orange, would look as far as the walls and promise himself that he’d make it outside someday.

When he’d found Kurama in the stone tunnels of his mind, or more accurately, when Kurama brought him to his cage, he’d been surprised and scared of the big fox a little, but he was more excited because there was something  _ new _ . He’d spent ages exploring his mindscape, the tunnels covered in phosphorescent moss, the marshes and currents that flowed between the islands with soft grasses. It was still a dark tunnel, and it seemed almost like a sewer sometimes because of all the pipes on the walls, but there were no bad smells, and it felt complete. Kurama said the pipes and currents represented their chakra, how they flowed from Naruto and Kurama and back, the nature chakra going straight through Naruto to make Kurama bigger. He even taught him how to control it a bit! Apparently, having nature chakra coursing through him since birth had made Naruto able to mimic it, and it made him pretty hard to find. Naruto thinks that is part of why he’s not supposed to go outside. Tou-san taught him to amplify that, to use it. To keep his chakra looking exactly like the nature around it no matter what he felt and sneak past the gates to explore the village. It took the masked people a lot longer to find him when he felt like nature chakra, apparently. 

He thinks that might be why the Matron kicked him out. He wasn’t trying to be  _ bad _ , he just wanted to explore! All the other kids got to go out on trips to the playground or go to lessons outside the orphanage or even go with Matron on shopping trips! Naruto knew she didn’t want him to leave, that he was supposed to stay inside and stuff ‘cause of Tou-san, but it wasn’t fair! He didn’t ask his human parents to trap Tou-san, and he didn’t wanna spend his whole life stuck in the orphanage! Besides, some of the big kids were going to the Academy, and he heard (spied) them talking about how all the “clan kids” had a bunch of training already, and Naruto wanted to be the best ninja ever, so he needed to train as much as possible before the Academy! (Kurama said being a shinobi was stupid because the village was just gonna use him, and that the Academy would be useless because Kurama could destroy any ninja, but he also said that Naruto wasn’t allowed to be a boring civilian who would get themselves killed on a walk, and he taught him lots that would make him a better shinobi, so Naruto just tries to phrase it as learning to be the strongest and takes the lessons. Kurama also says that he had better do better than any “stupid, cowardly, tricking, meddling, red-eyed  _ Uchiha  _ ”, whatever that means.)

Naruto had only been able to have chakra hiding and sensing lessons with Tou-san because they were both trying to learn how to train a human body. (Kurama tou-san was a very big, very strong, very scary chakra fox that didn’t really need exercise. Or jutsu. Or human body mechanisms and fighting abilities.) Once Naruto was able to hide his chakra always, they would usually leave the orphanage and go spy on the Academy lower-level exercises and practices to try and learn the basics. (They’d tried spying on the official shinobi training fields first, but they summarily did not know what was happening.) It had taken a while to get good enough at sneaking quietly and staying out of sight and not leaving tracks that the masks couldn’t find him even though they couldn’t feel him, but that just meant he was  _ really _ the sneakiest ever! The rest of the day was spent either exploring or back in Naruto’s room, in his mindscape practicing chakra manipulation and sensing.

But the point is, Naruto didn’t mean to be a disruption! He even stuck to a schedule and came back every day for lunch and dinner and sleep if he left! Matron still threw him out a week after his fourth birthday with a backpack of two pairs of clothes, three sandwiches, a water bottle, and instructions to not come back, ever. He tried to return the next day, but it didn’t work, and she still didn’t let him in. Kurama tou-san told him that she wouldn’t help him. At first, Naruto thought that the masked people could help, but the ones he felt the most felt like  _ pain-syrup-trap-choke-silence _ , felt wrong and bad and he didn’t want to know what they’d do if they couldn’t take him back to the orphanage.

So they figured it out. Naruto found that the shops didn’t like him, wouldn’t let him in, and if he tried to argue too much, the bad masked people would start to come find him. He found out that Kurama knew lots of ways to hunt birds and fish and rabbits in the forests around the training grounds. That some shops had food they threw out after hours that was still perfectly good, if cold or a little stale. It was hard, and Naruto didn’t always catch something, or make it to the bins, and his stomach hurt a lot because even when he got food, it was never enough because he needed more food than the usual person. Rama tou-san made sure he was never too cold at night, that he had another set of senses looking for the bad masked people and mean store owners. Naruto thought that things were going relatively well, until a bakery store owner caught him digging in his bin right before closing. He was mad, really mad, and he was calling the police and chasing Naruto, so he ran and ran and ran. He ran far and, and he cried. Because suddenly, it was too much. He was tired and hungry and weak and tou-san may be in his head but he was so  _ scared _ . He didn’t get it. Why did everyone hate him? Why did the people all decide to not like him? He wasn’t the Kyuubi! He wasn’t even Kurama! He wasn’t a monster, or a demon, or bad, he wasn’t, he wasn’t,  _ he was not!  _ So he ran until he couldn’t feel the police or the mean owner, and then he just kept running. Running to the only place in the village that he felt something even close to being as big and wild and natural as Kurama.

*****

Kurama does not  _ regret _ . He does not dwell on mistakes because he does not make them. He did not attack the petty humans unless their malice and hatred were so concentrated in one area that there was no hope for them. (If he seemed to attack more and more often, it was obviously because humans became more and more awful, certainly not because he had been run ragged, had found  _ hope  _ to be more and more tiresome to hold on to and so much quicker to run out) He did not speak to his siblings, who also kept to their own territories, and it was  _ fine _ . The Sage, his Father, and even the human siblings that had led to his demise were all gone and  _ it didn’t matter _ . People forgot what the bijuu were, forgot the Sage’s (Father’s) teachings and chose to perpetuate war and death and  _ ninjutsu _ , and it. Didn’t.  **Matter** . At least it hadn’t, until that upstart of an Uchiha had gone and used his stupid eyes to make Kurama attack the humans and village he held a petty, stupidly human hatred for. Which had led to him being sealed, trapped, cornered into a stupid, self- entitled vixen of an Uzumaki. She may have seemed perfect and nobly self-sacrificing to all the other humans around her, but he knew. Knew that she may not have planned it, may not have liked it at first, she was more curious and cunning and  _ proud  _ than scared. She became more and more arrogant and sure the longer he was contained, kept him beat down and locked away as she stole his chakra and poked and prodded at his very self. 

And still, it had not been enough, no, she hadn’t stopped at him, she’d caught and bound and  _ gifted  _ his siblings to their enemies and allies like  _ slaves _ , like  _ things  _ and  _ tools  _ to be used and bartered with. They called them by numbers, reduced them to weapons and named them demons as they destroyed any and everything they didn’t understand for nothing but their  _ pride.  _ Pride and hate, the human evil that had torn his family to bits. They hated them and condemned them as they took every advantage of their existence and called it  _ fair.  _ Called it  _ right,  _ called it  _ justice _ , as if Kurama and his siblings had ever wanted to interfere with humans and their wars.

He had been furious. Still was, because the Uzumaki witch hadn’t even let him rest and reform upon her death, no, she discovered a way to put him in a new cage right before her death. The new one, another Uzumaki witch, was just as bad. Worse, even, because she’d had a  _ choice,  _ and she’d chosen this. Kurama might have been composed more of hatred and rage than chakra at that point, but he was not a mindless beast. He knew not to blame the children for their prior's sins, just as he knew that children were not always as blameless as their predecessors. (He may hate and hate and rage, but he refused to be part of their petty human cycle. His reasons for hating any specific human more than usual disdain and lack of benefit of the doubt were always well deserved.)

The new one was younger, maybe, and not a direct descendant of the old, but she was still practically the same. She instantly faced him with prideful, ignorant fury and chained him down. He may have blamed and hated the first witch for being too greedy, but he hated the second for her ignorance. He’d tried to explain, to bargain with the first, eventually. After the battle, after years of being trapped and drained, he didn’t even want revenge - well, he did still, but he had wanted to be  _ free  _ more. He’d tried to promise to leave Konoha alone, even protect it on his own terms, if she just let him go. She’d refused. She’d said he was a demon, that he was best suited as a tool to the true protectors of Konoha. So he hated her.

The second, the second was worse in her ignorance. He never offered her the same deal, never thought to even try to explain himself, because he knew she would not listen. Like the first, she kept him locked down and ignored anything he said at all times, never even thought to question the legends of his deeds and evils. So he had nothing to do but wait, and rage, and make it as difficult and painful as possible for her to use his chakra. Then, she’d gone and gotten a tod. He couldn’t see everything she did, not without great effort, but he did have access to her memories, especially her subconscious. She couldn’t keep anything from him for long, not really, not so long as he tried to make sense of the mess that is the human mind.

She’d gotten a tod, and she felt so- so- so  _ happy.  _ So  _ free,  _ and  _ safe,  _ and  _ loved  _ with him and he  _ hated it.  _ She hated and chained and drained him and she was allowed to be  _ happy?!  _ No. He couldn’t really refuse her chakra, he couldn’t break the seal, he couldn’t even take over her body or influence her to madness, but he  _ would  _ do something to take her happiness. Eventually, he’d vowed to find some way to hurt her as much as she tortured him.

He’d found a way to do it, eventually. It was an accident at first, really. He only realized later what had happened. There’d been a battle, and after weeks in the field fighting, the vixen had seen fit to steal his chakra to use. He’d fought her, of course, and even the chakra she’d stolen had been full of all the burning malice he could muster- which was quite a lot. It was after the battle that he noticed that her chakra felt… off. He couldn’t quite pinpoint why it felt so, but something was wrong. A few days later, by his count, the chakra surrounding his cage had been filled with sorrow, horror, and a bone-deep kind of pain.

He’d assumed that she had discovered her tod was dead or something of the sort, as the feeling was close to the time she was despondent for weeks when her home village fell, but a quick look into her subconscious told him differently. It had been covered in blood, so much blood in a bathroom, and then a cold hospital room with the words “you lost them” over and over in an alternately clinical, sorrowful, and accusatory voice. In retrospect, it was almost amazing the vixen noticed anything was wrong at all. She’d been three weeks pregnant when she’d used his chakra on the battlefield. The fetus- not even an inch long, the barest hint of a heartbeat and chakra coils forming. He’d apparently noticed the tiny being’s absence, as its growth had snuck up on both of them in the jailor’s two weeks of battle.

He hadn’t meant to. It wasn’t even fully his fault, two weeks of constant battle at the very beginning of a pregnancy was not wise in any circumstances, his malice filled chakra had just happened to be the last straw. But… but she was so  _ sad  _ for once, and it was because of him- in a way. She spent ages in battles, wars, even surviving her entire families fall, and only now was she experiencing a pain that could compare to the torment he and his siblings had been subjected to. (She barely spent any time blaming him, assuming that drawing his chakra forward was her fault. Which, it was, but… She’d had the most convenient excuse  _ right there _ , and she’d already blamed him for so much- why not that?)

And he didn’t really like it, but- He was just so  _ angry  _ and  _ helpless  _ and he wanted to make her  _ hurt.  _ So he’d used the little leeway the seal gave him and began to constantly cycle burning chakra into her body, just enough that no egg or sperm would ever even attach to her womb, that they would never even be fully fertilized, even when she tried. (And it wasn’t  _ bad.  _ She did the same to herself when taking preventive herbs, he wasn’t destroying fetuses or even zygotes, just ensuring that she would never be pregnant. Children were the one soft, kind things in the world. When young, their chakra was a balm compared to the hatred and sadness of everyone else, but even that only lasted the first decade, if they were lucky.)

And then there was the brat. Apparently, instead of rendering all her eggs barren, some had  _ adapted _ . It had taken her ages longer than she’d wished, but she had gotten it. She was pregnant. It was a tenacious thing, and he didn’t know what to do. (She was still so  _ happy,  _ and he still hated it, but he couldn’t-) He’d let it grow, one month, two, a small part of his mind justifying it by saying he’d get rid of it later, give her hope and rip it away, but then the little brat had decided to die all on its own. And he’d panicked. It had been so small, even for a human, and yet already so big, with stubby limbs and tiny appendages under a head just forming its brain. Kurama honestly doesn’t know what happened, but suddenly the little brat’s heart (so tiny, not even fully formed) began to slow, and the brain thing in its head started growing sideways and Kurama just- reacted. He tried so hard and he doesn’t even know what he did, he just projected as much balanced, living chakra he could at the thing’s minuscule chakra coils (still so free and not even properly anchored to tenketsu points) and told them, impressed the idea and will that they should  _ work _ . That they should heal the body they belonged to back to how it should be, and when that failed a bit because  _ apparently  _ the body just wanted to grow wrong, he directed the chakra (his and the brat’s, but mostly his carving paths for the brat’s to follow so that it would  _ live  _ ), showing it how to flow, how to heal, how to keep the body healthy and growing and  _ living.  _ It was time-consuming work, because every time he thought the brat had it down and he backed away, they would go and try to die in a new way all over again! Or simultaneously decide that the eyes or ears wouldn’t be connected to the brain, or that the heart should have little holes, or the brain should lack the ability to connect to the spine, or some other, new way to leave the ki-  _ brat  _ likely to die in its first growth stage.

He honestly doesn’t actually remember much of the vixen’s emotions or thoughts during that period, only that there seemed to be an underlying happiness around him and she had at some point tried to stuff him far, far down and completely block him from her chakra paths and body. He didn’t fight much, because that just meant that she didn’t notice his chakra working to assist the kit (he’d almost panicked, before realizing that the seal kept him from  _ her  _ body and  _ her  _ chakra, but the kit was growing independently of her and yet inside her, so they were still within his reach  _ (he could still save them, still make up for his stupid rage) _ ). When he realized that the kit-  _ BRAT!  _ was formed enough to be born (still so tiny, so weak, so reliant on others to live) and that its chakra was sustaining itself properly, merely cradled in his own instead of directed by it, he’d been... sad. Accomplished, smug, proud, and awed that he’d genuinely made  _ life _ , that for once he’d been in time to heal instead of left to rage, but he knew what came next. Knew the ki- yes, the kit would be born and then grow and be taught to hate him just as everyone else. Sage, they would probably be his next cage seeing as the rest of the Uzumaki were unavailable and that Kurama was sure he’d inadvertently made them well beyond able to handle his chakra. But for now, the kit only knew him as the chakra that warmed and guided and healed it, for now, it welcomed him and held no malice or anger or even fear (he made sure they  _ never  _ had a reason to fear). And he would mourn the loss of the kit when it was born (when he lost it, and he was sure this was some sort of karmic repayment for the vixen’s other brat  _ (and the ones he kept from being a possibility) _ ), but he would not (could not) care for it after. If- when they met again, the ki- brat would be his enemy, his jailor, and he would not help them again. Kurama would hold on to his hate, he would not be swayed. (And if he held on to the memory of the small kit who he helped grow and care for, who he saved and loved in the infinitely short time he had it, if he tucked it deep in the back of his mind with the memories of the Sage, his Father, and times when his siblings loved and cared for one another, well, no mortals would ever find out)

*****

And then the Brat (he didn’t know what the humans had named it, he hadn’t looked  _ (he’d named them Mochi, argued that it would help him remove the kit from the jailor it’d become ~~(~~ _ ~~_ he’d thought it fit, Hope. Here and lost and beyond his reach in the flick of a tail. _ ~~ _~~)~~ ) _ ) had been born. Or more accurately, the day of birth was also the most completely FUBAR day that Kurama had ever experienced. And he’d been around for a long time, had practically coined the idea of “hope for the best, prepare for the worst” (they were technically all the same age, but he was the strongest and therefore the “oldest” and his siblings were  _ absolutely  _ the reason he had no patience), so that was saying a lot. He’d barely had time to properly rage, even! The  _ Uchiha  _ had dragged him out of the vixen, and then  _ controlled  _ him, made him attack the same petty village, and he’d gotten caught and sealed before he could just run,  _ all over again.  _ It became even worse when he’d realized it was the vixen’s tod that was sealing him, that they were not going to seal him back into the vixen, but into Mo- the ki- THE BRAT. (he’d hoped that they would let him disperse with the vixen, that they’d let him be free, that Mochi would not ever be his personal enemy if he could help it)

He’d tried to stop them, tried to kill the brat even in a last-ditch attempt (he’d already  _ (tried to) _ convinced himself that Mochi had died the second the brat had been born and out of his reach, he could handle one more measly human death, it may even be kinder than letting it live in this hate-filled world  _ (liar) _ ) to be free in some way, especially after the tod had ripped away his Yin half. It hadn’t worked, and though he had some satisfaction in adding pain to both the tod and the vixen’s ends, it paled in the face of being trapped in the brat, being made a slave again because- because what? The tod thought that he was too useful a weapon, that the pale hope that a barely born brat could contain even half of the greatest bijuu’s chakra (and how could he? How could he risk his kit like that, how could he just assume that the brat wouldn’t just die from overload? The tod had no idea that Kurama had spent the pregnancy healing and improving the kit, making him stronger than any human newborn really had any right to be. How could he leave his kit to be so helpless and free to be used like that? Just as much a tool and a weapon and a  _ slave  _ as Kurama himself  _ (did the human notice Mochi’s marks as well? Had he believed that the kit was already a monster, already different enough to be considered a weapon rather than a child?) _ ) was greater than just letting him die?

When it was over, when the vixen and tod were dead and he was sealed in  _ Naruto  _ (and what kind of name was that? “Fish cake”, tch, he was so much better at naming, humans were dumb), when his rage and shock had settled just a bit, and he’d focused on his old past time of stretching his chakra out against the seal as much as he could, he’d noticed. Noticed how much more range he had, how much more connected to the brat’s chakra he was, (how the kit’s chakra still recognized him, still trusted and welcomed and loved him in that bumbling, unconscious way of kits not yet able to truly think) how he could still feel the  _ world _ . It was a little harder, and he had to be careful not to smother or harm the kit lest he activate the seal’s safeguards and be shunted back to the cage when trying, but he could thread minuscule bits of his own chakra  _ through  _ the seal and the kit’s chakra and feel the natural chakra of the world. It took even longer to realize that he wasn’t just able to feel  _ out _ , but that the kit was taking nature chakra  _ in _ . That the natural chakra was being directed to him, was healing him, that sometimes it didn’t even need to be converted because apparently there were bits of his Yin chakra in the village.

Admittedly, he’d panicked a little again. He didn’t spend a lot of time observing humans, but he distinctly remembered that humans who used too much nature chakra turned to stone or something, and he didn’t want that for hi- the kit. But he spent ages waiting, and eventually he came to the conclusion that the kit somehow took after him more than humans in that aspect. (HA! Who’s the better progenitor  _ now _ , stupid humans?!) And then he observed the brat’s surroundings. How no humans would approach him (apparently his kit was a male as well, he’d forgotten that humans had sexes based on their bodies and not just the pronouns they preferred) unless necessary, only touching him for the bare minimum basic care needed to live. How they whispered, said his markings were growing (how? He’d noticed tiny whisker marks when the kit was a newborn, but surely a mostly human kit wouldn’t grow anything like  _ actual whiskers,  _ which would be the only kind of markings the humans should find suspicious, given the kind of oddities clan markings may hold the last he checked), how he was a demon child and not to be trusted. Kurama initially made contact out of a moment of pity and righteous anger that these humans  _ dare  _ to treat  _ his kit  _ so poorly, and sometimes he- does not  _ regret _ , Kurama doesn’t  _ do  _ regret. Just, maybe thinks he miscalculated. (Sometimes, he can’t take it. He hates the kit’s human tod that left his kit, hates the village that hurts him like it hurts Kurama, hates that he cannot do more,  _ (fears that the kit will leave him too. That he will find out all his secrets and all his rage and will choose to hate him just as his predecessors did, and that Kurama will have put his hope in the wrong thing all over again)  _ so he tells the kit everything. Tells him more than kits should really know, tries to drive him away, even as he longs to keep him close and safe and  _ loved _ as if he was still a tiny thing in a womb and not a human  _ (are they though?)  _ that will inevitably enter the cycle of hatred.)

He heard the crowds that gathered at the orphanage’s gates, demanding to see the demon child or complaining that he was “allowed” to wander around. He made sure Naruto was out exploring at those times. Made sure he was too preoccupied with new things to explore to pay attention to the faraway sounds at the orphanage. He knew that the Matron kicked them out over the stress and fear of the crowds more than of anything Naruto did or was. 

He didn’t know what to do when they were on the street, really. At first, he was sure they’d be fine, but then he’d been more and more sure he was  _ wrong  _ because Naruto was more scared than he’d ever been in his life, even as he tries to hide it from him (and he was sure that was wrong, too. That Naruto wasn’t supposed to be scared of someone he calls Tou-san, but he couldn’t get rid of it, not when he was still so sure  _ (scared)  _ that Naruto would learn to hate him, too). So, when Naruto runs and runs and runs toward what his mind thinks is safe (and isn’t it nice to know that no matter how he presents himself, Naruto’s first instinct remains that Kurama is  _ safe _ ), Kurama does not stop him. Instead, he makes sure to keep his senses focused on the forests around them, keeps his kit warm, and circulates a steady enough powerful chakric aura to keep the oddly large (as far as he knows) creatures in this particular section of Konoha's forests from trying to mess with them, and prepares to keep the kit moving come morning.

*****

Naruto woke to an ache in his bones that he knew came from sleeping on really hard ground in the cold, a pounding head, itchy eyes and throat, and with no idea where he was. Well, he knew he couldn’t be  _ that  _ far from Konoha, and he appeared to be in one of the forests, but he’d never been in this area before. The trees were all super huge, tall and wide as houses, and the chakra around him felt- wild. More active and fast and  _ alive  _ and- and- a little more  _ mean  _ than usual nature chakra.

**[Well you’re not wrong. This place is full of some real nasty pieces of work. I think even the trees want to keep everything out.]** Tou-san’s rumble relayed gently.  **[No one’s come in for the entire day you’ve been asleep.]**

[Wha- A whole day?! That’s way too long to waste on sleeping, dattebayo! And- and aren’t there patrols in everyplace in Konoha?] Naruto shouted back, but only in his head because his throat still felt really dry and it kept sticking like there was something in it when he tried to talk aloud.

**[Quit being pesky, take the luck. Now get up, there’s some running water nearby.]**

With a few protesting grumbles at being called “pesky”, he got up and moved toward the direction he could feel the fairly large body of water that was at least twice as wide as he was tall. He scratched his cheek over where his orange freckles were buried under quite a bit of dirt as he observed the not-quite-river. It didn’t look all too deep, but it was pretty fast, so Naruto was very careful when he went up to it. Using his hands as cups, he took as many sips as he needed until his throat didn’t hurt so much before sitting back by the bank and wiping his mouth with his arm and tattered jacket sleeve.

“Hey, Tou-san? You said there were no patrols in this area in a  _ whole day,  _ right?” He posed to Kurama as he tapped his feet and thought deeply. He flinched a bit though because a sudden voice aloud echoed very oddly in this forest full of nothing but nature sounds- not even the far off booms of training fields or the bustle of the markets. Especially because there was a big cliff right across the river.

**[Yes, Naruto. No patrols for the whole day.]** He sounded a little annoyed to have to repeat himself, but sometimes Tou-san was just like that.

Hmmm… [So, if we stayed here, then there wouldn’t be anyone coming to find me?]

**[... Huh. I suppose not, kit. What else have you got planned?]** Kurama Tou-san is smiling, Naruto  _ knows it,  _ so he smiles too now that his idea hasn’t been shot down.

[Well, if we find somewhere to stay in here, no one else will find it, right? An’- an’ then we can have somewhere safe that’s all ours and we won’t have to worry about anyone taking my bag or food or- or where we’re gonna stay that night or anything, dattebayo!] Naruto regales, growing more and more excited with every thought. It was  _ perfect,  _ they were always having to be on guard and careful about where Naruto slept because the ninja in the village didn’t always feel very nice and they didn’t wanna get caught, but if they somewhere to stay in a place where people would never look, then they’d be fine!

**[I’m not gonna stop you.]** Tou-san was doing that thing where he felt _spicecoldsoftwarm_ all at once and being really confusing (grown-ups did that a _lot_ ), so Naruto had learned to just smile and agree when he could. He cheered, though instantly brought it down to a happy hum when it still echoed weirdly in a way he _knew_ would get him caught back in the village. **[But I’m sure they don’t just have a place in the village that they** ** _never_** **visit, so it’ll have to be easy to hide still.]**

Nodding furiously, Naruto hopped up and began to walk upstream along the bank- it was always good to know where you could get good water (sometimes he’d found water that looked and smelled really icky and then his stomach had hurt for a while, but this water seemed fine!). It was a cool little river, too, because the other side had a big cliff (okay, not super big, but it was way taller than two of him, so it looked huge!) that sometimes had grass and stuff coming down it, and there were little hills and slivers of banks that hugged the cliff and had more grass sometimes. It was also much less scary to look at the cliff wall than the big, empty forest that looked kinda dark even though he knew it was day and held a ton of  _ really big  _ animal chakra signatures.

It turned out that looking at the cliff was really smart, though, because if he hadn’t been he would have missed it! There, atop one of the sliver-hill banks hugging the cliff, there was a hole in the cliff wall- a cave! One that looked like the opening was plenty big for him but would be a little hard to get through for an adult, and especially hard for all the big animals Tou-san had told him he’d seen bits of while he was sleeping. With an excited laugh, he waded through a bit of the river (the spot neat the end of the opposite bank was only up to his thighs) and scrambled to the cave. It was only a little shorter than him, and he could just barely reach one side to the other with the tips of his fingertips, so it should be plenty big! He quickly bent down to crawl in on his hands and knees. The floor was relatively level, and it seemed to go pretty far in.

Naruto eagerly began to try and find the back, he wanted to know if it ever got bigger, or how far in he’d be able to hide before it was too small! He took a few sniffs, but it mostly smelled a little damp and very earthy and rock-filled, only the barest traces of any kind of animal. He was so lucky!

He frowned a little bit when he felt the ceiling beginning to lower when he’d made it in about- er, six feet? Well, not all that long. He turned back and could still totally see outside really well, he’d have to make sure there was a lotta camouflage for the entrance if he was staying here! He was still contemplating what he could use for that when he suddenly found that there was nothing to support the weight of his front hand anymore and suddenly he was falling forwards and tumbling with a scream.

“OW, ‘TTEBAYO!” He screamed after he was done with all the spills, rubbing his head and back from where he’d landed. Opening his eyes made it clear that though his fall hadn’t taken long, he’d made it past enough turns that the light didn’t make it to him anymore.

It was  _ really  _ dark, and his head still hurt just a little, and that had been scary, and what if he couldn’t get back up and he was gonna  _ die here  _ and this was so stu-

**[Kit, we’ve practiced making lights before. Calm down, take it in. There’s no one and nothing around for a mile that’s going to even think of coming for you, take your time. Let’s see what kind of mess we’re in first.]** Tou-san’s steady growl made him take a breath and calm down. He was right, he knew how to make chakra lights no problem, he didn’t need to be scared of any dark! And- an’ even if there  _ was  _ something, it’d be no match for him and Tou-san, dattebayo!

He concentrated and gathered a bit of  _ softcleanbright  _ chakra into his hand, carefully cupping it with one hand under and one over close to his chest to make sure it would gather into a neat little ball rather than just spread everywhere. When he was sure the soft blue and gold swirling globe was stable, he held it out and studied the place he’d fallen into.

The cavern wasn’t actually the  _ biggest,  _ it wasn’t even close to the cafeteria in the orphanage (not that he spent too much time in there), but it was a bit bigger than his room had been. It was a few feet taller than him, so he stood up to explore more. By holding his hands out and doing very,  _ very  _ careful turns, he found that one was it was a tiny bit less than two full stretches one way and almost three full stretches the other way. The walls around the edges curved a bit, but the space was remarkably rectangular-ish- except there was a dip in about the middle of the longer way that almost made him trip because he’d been looking up to the curved and tilted ceiling. It went up to his knee, so he’d have to be careful.

Best of all, though, was that the entrance was really easy to find! The shorter wall on the higher part was curved out a lot more, and the ceiling went up that way too. It wasn’t too hard to climb up the slope to a pretty flat area where the sides were shrinking but it was easy to see the light coming in over the edge of the nest step. It was really neat like there were stairs to his new cave room- and he was definitely keeping it, it was  _ so perfect- _ albeit, steps that were nearly as tall as him. And it was the perfect way to stay more hidden because he could put some dark blankets at the top of the first step and there would be so much shadows that even if someone else did find the cave, looking in they would think it was too small to fit them or be comfortable!

Naruto laughed and cheered unreservedly when he’d finally crawled all the way out. He had a really good, hidden, and safe place to stay! Sure, he’d need to get a lot more things to make it comfy, and he’d have to hide the entrance extra well, but he could do it! He wasn’t gonna back down, this was his cave now and he would make it the most awesome, comfy, and well hidden cave ever! (He would make it his home)

*****

Naruto growled in his throat. Why wasn’t it  _ working?  _ He wanted his new cave home to be extra safe and as well hidden and guarded as possible, more than just the stick-gates and fake-bushes he used to cover the entrance, and he knew that the chakra barriers around all the big housing areas with smaller walls- clan compounds, Tou-san said- kept people not invited or able to sense chakra like him from going in or out. Some of them even had secret spots that even he couldn’t find or see until he walked into the barriers, and he wanted to make those kinds of protections for his home! But no matter how hard he tried, even when he was sure he’d memorized the right feel of the barriers and how to mimic them (and he knew he had it right, because the only way for him, a very not-invited person, to get into the compounds was to perfectly mimic the various barriers, and the few times he messed up while learning led to fast retreats and careful hiding from the alert and very angry grown shinobi), no matter how long he sat and held the surrounding chakra in the right pattern, the moment he stopped focusing on it, it would  _ all fall apart! _

He flopped down and sprawled back in the tall grass of the cliff directly over his cave’s entrance with a sigh. He  _ knew _ that he was just missing one small thing, but he just couldn’t figure out what and Tou-san was being no help for some reason! It’d been nearly another two whole months (he thinks, he doesn’t exactly have a calendar, but it has been two moon cycles!) since he’d found his cave, and he’d since found a bunch of really nice cushions from a couch someone was throwing out and a few blankets from wires all around the village (he felt really bad about taking them, but he also looked really closely and made sure the wires he took blankets from had a lot of different blankets that would hang there at different times, so they probably wouldn’t miss just one?) and even a whole bookshelf (It was still pretty small, so it wasn’t too hard to fit through the narrow entrance) that he could put some of the clothes he’d similarly snatched on (his had a lot and a _ lot  _ of holes) and the foodstuff he was trying to store (that was kinda hard because some of it got smelly quick and some didn’t and he had to be careful what he kept and what he ate right away). His cave was full of all his important stuff now, it was his home, and he needed to make sure it was safe! But the stupid barriers weren’t  _ working. _

He needed to get them working  _ fast  _ because no matter how little people came into the forest, the ones that did every once in a while were  _ really good shinobi _ and he  _ needed  _ to be able to hide his home from them (he couldn’t be kicked out again, it was  _ his home _ now and he was trying so hard, he just wanted one safe place in the village, was that too much to ask?). He couldn’t even set up good traps around his home, because then if there were traps, the shinobi would know someone was there to trap something!

**[FINE! Fine, just- quit your whining! I know why it’s not working, kit.]** Tou-san growled out.

Sitting quickly, Naruto shouted a scream and responded [WHY HAVEN’T YOU TOLD ME, DATTEBAYO?!!! I’VE BEEN TRYING TO GET THIS RIGHT FOR A FULL MONTH AND YOU NEVER SAID _ ANYTHING?!!! _ ]

(He’d stopped saying words out loud a while ago, he wasn’t quite sure when. He just- didn’t really see the point. Tou-san was the only one who would listen to him, and he was sneaking around the rest of the time so it wasn’t like he could strike up a conversation. No one had wanted to talk with him before anyway, and it was easier to talk to Tou-san in his head.)

**[Pipe down, kit! I didn’t know if you’re method would work or not either, and the thing you’re missing is- Well, I only learned it fro- I wasn’t all that keen to remember it, okay?!]**

[Oh.] Naruto paused. Rama Tou-san didn’t like remembering a lot of things, but the only one he could think of right now would be things he learned while he was stuck in Naruto’s human Ka-san. Which made sense, because the barriers were a human thing, and Tou-san only really learned human things from his jailors. [... You don’t hav’ta tell me, Tou-san. We can figure out another way, ‘ttebayo!]

He heard a great gusting sigh and almost felt it, too, it was so big, before Tou-san answered,  **[No, kit. I was just- being stubborn. You… You deserve to know it, especially with how the- your… Ka-san isn’t here to teach you.]**

Naruto’s breath caught, and he carefully sat very still. Tou-san had been acting a lot different since they’d left the orphanage. He wasn’t ever gonna  _ say it,  _ but Tou-san was… nicer. He answered more and was always giving advice and he’s stared to tell more stories about the jinchuriki before him when teaching him new skills. But sometimes, if Naruto pushed too much, Tou-san would snap and go quiet for a very long time and Naruto  _ really  _ wanted to know more about his Ka-san (and maybe even his human Tou-san) so he kept very still and quiet and paid extra careful attention.

**[What you’re missing is seals. The art of fuuinjutsu, which both your parents, and your mother’s family in particular, were known for. It’ll act as the base, anchor, and instructions for the chakra to stay in the form of the barriers.]** Tou-san carefully explained. His chakra was a  _ mess,  _ and Naruto couldn’t make any sense of it all- there was  _ cold  _ and  _ spice  _ and  _ lava  _ and  _ feathersoftfootprints  _ and more and more that he couldn’t tell which was what Tou-san was focussing on or which was most important, but that was okay. He just had to be careful,  _ careful _ and ask only a few questions, Tou-san was big and could and would tell him if he needed help (Naruto didn’t know that he really wouldn’t, but he’d learn eventually).

Tou-san was quiet for a very long time before Naruto hesitantly asked, [Can you teach me, Tou-san?] and held his breath as he waited for the answer.

(He was only four, so he could be excused for not fully noticing that Kurama was going through a very intense bout of soul searching in order to even acknowledge that he really had no right to keep the kit’s heritage from him.)

**[I can try to teach you, kit, but it’ll have to be the same way I learned, as I was never really-** **_taught_ ** **fuuinjutsu like humans are.]** Tou-san rumbled. He still sounded very not-Tou-san-like in his hesitance, but that was okay.

[That’s okay, dattebayo! I’ll- I’ll study  _ super  _ hard and practice lots and- and I’ll listen and be the best at fuu- fuunjutsu  _ ever,  _ I promise! Please?] Naruto tried not to yell because Tou-san was feeling very like he would not answer, but he couldn’t help it, he was so excited! He was bouncing in place and humming and he couldn’t help but feel like he was on the verge of learning the secrets of the  _ whole world _ because sealing sounded like the coolest  _ ever! _

**[Yeah, yeah, calm down. It’ll take me a while to figure it out, so just go do your exercises or something, kit.]** Kurama Tou-san  _ sounded  _ grumpier, but he felt much more  _ softstillwarm  _ than before, so Naruto knew he was actually feeling happier and just acting silly.

He hummed in agreement and jumped up to begin his exercise routine. (They still didn’t really know any full kata’s because he’d heard one sensei say that the exact placement for everything was very important to make sure you didn’t get bad habits but he didn’t have anyone to correct him, so the routine was a lot of running and push-ups and practicing falling and stuff that the younger classes went over for weeks at a time.)

*****

Naruto sighed heavily again as he lay back down after completing his stretches- they’d found out that stretches before and after running and push-ups and stuff was very important- and began to spread his chakra out in the surrounding natural chakra as if he were about to try to make barriers again, but instead of trying to change the chakra this time he matched it with his own and just _listened._ It was always very relaxing to just sit and listen to all the different chakra’s in the forest or village, but he wanted to try something a little different. He’d had to practice a lot to be able to grasp all the different natural chakra in an area he wanted to make a barrier in, and he found that before he could grasp it he had to match _everything_ and then start changing it. It was kind of like when he would hide his chakra by matching it to the environment, but instead of just matching it just inside himself, he spread his chakra out and inside everything around him and _then_ make it match. It felt so _pretty,_ but he’d never just stayed like that before- never just _listened_ because he was busy trying to make the barriers. So this time, he just lied back and tried to hum along to all the different kinds of chakra around him.

The dirt and rocks had chakra, but it moved so slow and careful that it was easy to match. It wasn’t really boring, and it was so constant everywhere that it took him a while to find out it was there, but now he was sure the whole world would feel-sound-look so  _ wrong  _ if it weren’t there. Anyway, while the earth was constant and slow and strong like the calm bears, the air was light and fast-moving and it may  _ seem  _ the same everywhere, but it was actually a little different in every place he went or even just depending on the day. It was fun, and his chakra always lept to follow the currents as easy as breathing until he felt like he could  _ fly.  _ The creek was  _ fun, _ full of water that ran and ran and felt cool and laughed and roared and trickled all at once, always moving, always new and sneaking in and out of the crevices in the earth. But still, probably his favorite to listen to were the plants.

The plants were still and constant like the earth, but they reached for the sky and they were alive like animals but more still and usually much happier and simpler. Not that they were super easy, because they made so many pretty sounds and there were so many in one space and sometimes it was hard to keep track of all the different plants in the clearing, but if he could spread his chakra in each of them and match each one individually and just  _ listen-feel  _ the way everything lived and grew and just  _ existed  _ in harmony- well, it was just so peaceful. He breathed with them and hummed all their songs and felt like nothing else mattered because in that moment nothing could touch him. Nothing could hurt him, and if something, somehow, did, well he would just grow back stronger and better and  _ taller  _ and-

**[KIT! I leave you alone for- How did you even- ]** Tou-san’s voice sputtered and shrieked and threw him out of the almost-but-not-quite-nap he’d been having. Naruto sat up quickly, looking for whatever it was that made Tou-san sound so shocked- and promptly got a face full of super tall grass.

“Blehck- bleh-blah-urg” Naruto tried to clear his mouth of the taste of grass that he’d gotten a mouthful of because he’d opened his mouth to shout. It took him a moment to realize what the very tall grass meant.

[AHHH! TOU-SAN, DID WE SLEEP FOR YEARS, DATTEBAYO??!!!] Sure, maybe Naruto didn’t really have too many pressing concerns, but he’d be sad if he missed the Lightning-Dog mask and Sprout-Cat coming back from their mission (they’d been gone for a long time, and at first he’d thought they just didn’t want to be his guards at the orphanage anymore, but he couldn’t feel them anywhere for months now).

**[Wha- No! You made everything fu-** **_grow!_ ** **What the he-heck, kit?! I know for a fact that** **_none_ ** **of your mother’s blood was Senju- and I’m sure it would have been mentioned at** **_some point_ ** **if your tod had any, too. So, by the Sage, how could you** **_possibly_ ** **make all these plants grow as if you had mokuton?!]** Tou-san sounded very upset right now, but Naruto wasn’t entirely sure why.

[Wai- wai- Tou-san, wait! Are you saying  _ I  _ did this? I have, er, mokuton, dattebayo? And that means I can  _ make plants grow? _ ] Naruto tried to keep calm, but he couldn’t help but get more and more excited as he spoke. Today was just full of so many amazing discoveries and-

**[No. No, no you** **_can’t_ ** **have mokuton, it’s a blood-line limit that you don’t have, so I’m wondering how in the** **_Moon_ ** **you could possibly do all this! It’s just- Not- just- Show me what you did, kit.** **_Exactly_ ** **what you did.]**

Naruto deflated a bit and let out a sad trill- birds were so  _ nice _ and they always made sounds that matched exactly what they were feeling, no ifs, and’s, or buts- but he tried to comply. Only-

[I can’t. I was being all  _ quiet  _ and  _ concentrate  _ and right now I’m too- There’s too much- Tou-san, Tou-san, I made things  _ grow!  _ I gotta see it, what if I can do it again and- and- and I could make the berry bushes grow and I could take the foodstuff from the gardens and just grow them back so it’s  _ not  _ stealing and- *HHUUUHH* TOU-SAN! I could have my OWN GARDEN, DATTEBAYO! And, and I wouldn’t have to worry about running out or anything and- and woah, Tou-san, can you  _ see  _ this, dattebayo?!! I even made the trees grow! And all the grass is so tall, and look at the flowers! They’re so pretty, ‘ttebayo!] Naruto was running and jumping all over the clearing- it wasn’t the biggest, only about ten feet across with only grass and flowers before the trees grew again, but now the grass that’d been around him was as tall as his shoulders and it kept up all the way to the trees, as far as- Naruto stopped when he realized that the grass was still  _ taller _ but not as tall as him anymore. Hmm…

He backtracked and found that the grass was almost as tall as him about- about where he’d wanted the barriers to be when he’d been practicing. After that, the plants were less and less grown until they seemed to have been unaffected about- er, two him’s tall away! Hmmmm…

Naruto sat with his hand on his right hand on his chin as his left folded to hold his right elbow and squinted his eyes as he hummed in thought- unconsciously humming the tune of the dirt as he swayed and pondered.

**[*sigh* You good now, kit? I get that it’s cool, but if we try again, we can figure out more, yeah?]** Tou-san sounded more like he was almost-laughing than anything, but Naruto nodded and clapped affirmatively before quickly sitting still with his hands on his knees like he’d seen the kids at the Academy do when they were supposed to focus really hard and quietly. He started to feel-listen to the plants again and slowly spread his chakra out…

*****

So, it turns out that he  _ didn’t  _ have the mokuton thing Tou-san had been worried about. According to Tou-san, he was just so awesome and had so much chakra that when he went and pushed his chakra out and matched the plants around him perfectly like that, he was actually giving the plants a ton of extra chakra and that made them grow  _ really fast. _ He’d tried for a whole week, but he couldn’t find any way to make them grow in certain directions or specific parts at a time like Tou-san said mokuton people could. He couldn’t even make them grow when he was moving or right away, because it took a lot of concentration to match the plants so perfectly. He did find that the bigger a plant, the easier it was to make _ only _ that plant grow because it was easier to find than something like a single grass plant (he wasn’t sure there was even such a thing), though. Naruto was a little sad that he would never be able to do awesome fight moves with his plants like Tou-san said mokuton people could, but he was happy because he could still have a super awesome garden so that he would never be hungry. (Tou-san was very quiet when he told him that, but he seemed a little happy too, so Naruto was sure it was fine.)

It was in the middle of planning what his garden would have to look like (he’d have to clear the clearing above the cave of grass and everything, which was sad but still true, and he’d have to make the garden in the shape of a circle because then it’d be really easy to sit in the middle and make it all grow, and maybe he could have a few bigger trees or bushes in those special plant boxes like he’d seen on people’s roofs inside his cave or-) when he realized that he’d been  _ completely _ sidetracked! 

[Tou-san! You gotta teach me sealing so I can make the barriers so no one will find me so I can make the garden, ‘ttebayo! You let me forget all about it!] Naruto stomped his foot and huffed at how his Tou-san hadn’t reminded him of the important things like he usually did.

**[Well, your practice with the plants was a good first step. The way I learned is literally anything but conventional, and being able to focus so completely on something else will help you greatly.]** Tou-san’s voice sighed out.

[Ehh, this sounds like learning it is gonna take  _ really long,  _ Tou-san…] Naruto squinted suspiciously with his hands on his hips.

**[Given I’m going to be teaching you by switching to communicating with you in seals.]**

[Wait, wait, wait! Seals is a  _ language!  _ But- but I only know how to talk the one we talk and that’ll take  _ forever  _ to learn, dattebayo! Is that the only way, really?] Naruto slapped his hands to his cheeks and dragged them down with a drawn out groan at “forever” to emphasize his point.

**[Well, unless you’ve decided to suddenly know how to read or where information on sealing is held and how to get it- which I know for a fact that you don’t- then this is what we’ve got.]** He snapped back.

[*Sigh*  _ Okayyy.  _ But I’ll work super hard and learn it all super fast so we can get to making my garden! And- WAIT! Did Ka-san know  _ another language?!  _ ‘Cause that’s where you learned it, right? Wow, she musta been so smart! An’- oh, sorry, I’m- er, how are we gonna talk to each other if I can’t understand you, Tou-san?] Naruto tries to cut himself off because he knows that ‘Rama Tou-san still doesn’t like to talk about his human parents.

**{Like this}** And  _ woah!  _ That was so weird! ‘Cause, ‘cause Tou-san hadn’t said any words, but he’d kinda seen-but-not-actually- _ seen  _ a squiggly circle-like thing and then he just-  _ knew  _ what Tou-san had meant.

[Woah…. What was  _ that,  _ ‘ttebayo?] Naruto sat in shock and awe as he tried to make sense of the way that had worked because it had made perfect sense and no sense because he had known exactly what was  _ meant  _ even if he hadn’t recognized the word and-

**{I couldn’t talk to your mother... or her predecessor. And I didn’t** **_want_ ** **to talk to them, as much as they didn’t want to talk to me. But I would get bored, and the only sources of new information were my jailors. And since they wouldn’t talk to me, I would explore their inactive minds- their memories, things that weren’t as important, or things that were just embedded into them. It was surprisingly a much larger apace than thair active minds. Both of them were Uzumaki through and through- they lived, breathed, and** **_thought_ ** **in sealing arts. It’s hard** **_not_ ** **to learn to interpret the only language you have available in a good hundred years.}** Tou-san didn’t really  _ sound  _ anything, but his chakra felt very stiff, like he was trying very hard not to be too much. It was really strange because he  _ knew _ exactly what Tou-san was not-saying, but what he not-saw was a bunch of shapes and characters that were full of meaning and purpose and he could already  _ see  _ the little patterns that repeated- like, they were mostly circular-ish with at least four sections or surrounded a big character, and some were really long because they could have many meanings and some were smaller because they were broad and-

{Cool…}

**{...Well, that wasn’t really a seal, but you’ve got the idea.}** Tou-san sounded very surprised but also-  _ warmforyouheavy- proud. _

[I’m gonna work extra hard, and then I’ll learn seals in no time and I’ll- I’ll be the most awesome Uzumaki ninja  _ ever! _ ] Naruto cheered, and his ‘Rama Tou-san chuffed a bit, but he didn’t disagree so that meant he would  _ help  _ and this was going to be amazing! He stood proud with his hands on his hips and hummed along with the wind- flying high and powerful and  _ free- _

_ Gluruckugh.  _ His stomach sounded.

[Oh no! The shops are gonna close soon and the bakery near the tall building was gonna have special things today- the, the moon cakes! We gotta go, dattebayo!] Naruto dashed off to Tou-san’s roaring laughter in his mind.

**Author's Note:**

> I have so many little things I've tried to some up with- lets see how much I remember.  
> I did not mean to bash any characters, Kurama is just mad at all the people involved in his sealing. Always.  
> Kushina's BFF was Mikoto, who had Itachi 7 or so years before Sasuke, so she might have tried to have kids before.  
> If you didn't catch it, Naruto has freckles. These are actually of import later  
> So, Naruto is still Naruto as of yet, but that will be changing.  
> He also doesn't really talk but I have gone to great pains to show that while he may not speak, he is not silent. Hope that showed.  
> Clarify again: Naruto does NOT have mouton- I just adore making plants grow and also he needs food  
> and... That's it! Can't remember much more right now, hope you liked it!


End file.
